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pR. Ei^^RS. 





iOURBON 




The »llRGEINTHE 




INES. 



By PROF, YATES SNOWDEN, 

OF SOUTH CAROLINA COLLEGE. 



The Keowe« Courier Presses, 

Walh»Ua» S. C. 

1906 




HE 




lOURBON 




The MilRGEINTHE 




INES. 



By PROF. YATES SNOWDEN, 

OF SOUTH CAROLINA COLLEGE. 



The Keowee Courier Presses, 

WalhalU, S. C. 

1906 






''Lest Wc Forget. 



ft 



The ** Bourbon " was first published in the ** South- 
ern Bivouac/' Nashville^ in September, 1886, and two 
editions subsequently in Charleston, S» C» 

The ^^ Dirge in the Pines'' first appeared in The 
(Charleston) News and Courier in December, J 889, on 
the occasion of the death of President Jefferson Davis, 
the friend and political disciple of Honorable John C, 
Calhoun, of South Carolina. 

These earlier editions have been long out of print 
and this more elaborate united publication is intended 
to supply a renewed inquiry for copies. 

Amicus. 
Newry, S. C, 

New Year's Day, 1906. 



The Carolina Bourbon* 



W. M. R(18J2-19020 

Ridiculous to some may seem 

Thifi relic of the old regime, 

So rudely wakened from his dream 

Of high ambition, 
A heart of nature^s noblest mould, 
By honor tempered and controlled — 
Oh ! look not in a soul so bold 

For mock contrition ! 

For, when the die of war was cast. 
And through the land the bugle blast 
Called to arms from first to last, 

For Carolina, 
Careless of what might be his fate. 
He gave his all to save the State ; 
He thought, thinks now (strange to relate). 

No cause diviner. 



Of name and lineage proud, he bore 
The character 'mongst rich and poor 
Which marks now, as in days of yore, 

The Huguenot. 
Two hundred slaves were in his train, 
Six thousand acres broad domain. 
(His ancestors in fair Touraine 

Had no such lot.) 

He loved and wooed in early days ; 
She died — and he her memory pays 
The highest tribute — for, with ways 

And views extreme, 
He, 'gainst stern facts and common sense, 
To the whole sex (to all intents). 
Transferred the love and reverence 

Of life's young dream. 



Perhaps too easy life he led — 
Four hours afield, and ten abed, 
His other time he talked and read, 

Or else made merry 
With many a planter friend to dine, 
His health to drink in rare old wine — 
Madeira, which thrice crossed the line. 

And gold-leaf Sherry* 

And here was mooted many a day, 
The question on which each gourmet 
Throughout the parish had his say : 

''Which is the best, 
Santee or Cooper River bream ? " 
Alas ! the evening star grew dim. 
Ere any guest agreed with him. 

Or he with guest* 



* 



The war rolled on, and many a friend 
And kinsman, whom he helped to send 
Their homes and country to defend, 

Home ne^er returned. 
What harder lot could now befall ! 
Threats could not bend nor woes appall ; 
Unmoved, he saw his Fathers^ hall 

To ashes burned. 



And now to live within his means. 
He dons his gray Kentucky jeans. 
(His dress, in other times and scenes. 

Was drap d^ete. 
His hat is much the worse for wear ; 
His shoes revamped from year to year. 
For ** calfskin boots are all too dear,^* 

We hear him say. 



So life drags on as in a trance, 
No emigre of stricken France, 
No Jacobite of old romance 

Of sterner mould. 
His fortune gone, his rights denied ; 
For him the Federal Union died, 
When o'er Virginia's line the tide 

Of battle rolled. 



** Loyal je serai durant ma vie/' 
So runs his motto. What cares he 
For the flag that flies from sea to sea 

And tops the world ? 
Within the silence of his gates 
Death's welcome shadow he awaits. 
Still true to those Confederate States 

Whose flag is furled. 

— Yates Snowden. 



The Dirge in the Pines* 



Mr, Daniel Ravenel, chairman of the committee of 
twenty-five citizens^ who^ in Aprils 1850, brought the 
body of Mr. Calhoun from Washington to Charleston, 
in his eloquent report of the journey says : 

'^To these more formal tributes were added other 
testimoniak less imposing, but not less touching. At 
several small places along the road the discharge of 
cannon was the manifestation of respect. As we passed 
a farm near Wilmington, N. C, the owner, an elderly 
man, stood at the roadside uncovered, his right hand 
resting on a small pine, hung with emblems of mourn- 
ing, with his two servants standing behind him, also 
uncovered. And a short time before this a distant bell 
had sounded the modest tribute of a rural neighborhood, 
where no assemblage was seen.'^ 

The death of Mr. Davis, Mr. Calhoun^s ablest and 
most ardent disciple, elicted many like touching tributes^ 
not only in Virginia and North and South Carolina, 



10 



bat throughout the Southein Stales. Perhaps the most 
pathetic incident of the day in South Carolina was the 
tolling of bells in the old Episcopal church of Pineville. 

The tribute was rendered by one who believes the 
Constitutional Union died when McDowell marched 
on Richmond, and whose worldly hopes were crushed 
when Lee surrendered at Appomattox. He has been 
written of in verse as '*The Bourbon/^ and college 
sophomores would speak of him as ultimus Romano- 
rum; but his striking individuality, high character, 
intelligence and patriotic ardor command the respect 
and admiration of all who have the honor of his friend- 
ship, or the privilege of his acquaintance. He lives in 
what was formerly the ^'overseer's house" on his plan- 
tation. His ancestrial home was put to the torch by 
order of General Hartwell, while he, surrounded by 
negro soldiery, with fixed bayonets, was compelled to 
witness its destruction. 

So much for the man ; his name matters not ; his 
friends will recognize even as poor a pen picture as 
this, for his family name has been ** the synonym for 
honor and integrity in South Carolina since the Revo- 
cation of the Edict of Nantes,'' and his own name has 
not been absent from the Council Rolls of the State, 
though it seldom appears in the ** personal " column of 
a newspaper. 



n 



He lives seven milec f t'om Plneville» once ** the Me- 
tropolis of St, Stephens/^ and the summer home of 
many of the rich planters of what was once the richest 
parish of the State, outside of Charleston, The story 
of the rise and fall of Pineville has been charmingly 
told by the late Prof. F. A. Porcher, and is familiar to 
many of the readers of The News and Courier. Three 
or four dwellings, a church built by the planters early 
in the century, and some chimneys, which mark the 
sites of the old club house and the many private resi- 
dences burned by Federal troops, arc all that remain of 
the dead village. 

Its very name Vv ill possibly pass away with the gen- 
eration, for the United States Government has, with 
unconscious sarcasm, changed the name of the post 
office from Pineville to '^Crawl,^' as if to typify its slow 
progress from Reconstruction to destruction. The 
church has not been opened for many years, and it is 
whispered that on the last occasion of divine service 
within its walls, **The Bourbon'' read the prayers, and 
the lady who composed the choir with one companion, 
formed the congregation. 

Three families, consisting cf the descendants of the 
first rector of the church, a worthy Northern gentleman, 
who has settled in the neighborhood since the war, 
and a quintette of sterling young men of the name and 



i 



12 



blood of Marion, constitute the white inhabitants oi ihc 
once populous Pineville. 

Many negroes, more or less respectable, live in the 
village, their shanties and ^'patches'^ covering the sites 
of the dwellings of their former masters. The church 
building is going to decay, and in a few years, if not 
now, the traveller passing this old sanctuary to the 
shattered tomb of Francis Marion, six miles further on, 
will see 

^^The bat and owl repose 
Where once the people knelt. 
And the high Te Deum rose/* 

It was upon such a scene and such a community 
that, through the lofty pines, the sunshine of the Uth 
of December burst all glorious. At mid-day, when the 
funeral ceremonies of Jefferson Davis were in progress 
in New Orleans, the bell of the little church tolled as it 
never tolled before. A dead church in a dead village 
has no sexton, and when the astonished villagers gath- 
ered around the porch they found there ** The Bour- 
bon,'' an old man of three score years and ten, ringing 
the funeral knell, and paying thus the last tribute he 
could offer to the loved leader of the Lost Cause. — 
Yates Snowden. in The News and Courier. January 
13th, 1890. 



0* 



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